"This is a remarkable moment for science," Secretary
Richardson said. "This new accelerator, which was completed
on schedule and on budget, will be the only place in the world
where researchers can do this kind of physics."

RHIC is a particle accelerator that will collide heavy ions -
atoms stripped of electrons, from heavy elements such as gold
- traveling in opposite directions at nearly the speed of light.
In those collisions, physicists hope to recreate conditions that
last existed millionths of a second after the Big Bang, when the
universe was born.

"We at Brookhaven are thrilled to present to the international
science community a world-class facility for the 21st century,"
said Brookhaven Laboratory Director John Marburger.

Scientists believe that protons and neutrons are made up of three
particles known as quarks, along with the gluons that bind them
together. Scientific theory holds that for a brief time at the
beginning of the universe there were no protons and neutrons,
only free quarks and gluons. As the universe expanded and cooled,
however, the quarks and gluons bound together and since thenhave remained virtually inseparable. RHIC's goal is to free
the quarks and gluons from their confinement in the nucleus, to
create a quark-gluon plasma. This rare state of matter has never
been seen before, and it offers physicists an exciting new area
of scientific study. The information found at RHIC can be applied
in nuclear physics (the study of the atom), particle physics (the
study of the atom's parts), astrophysics (the study of stars and
planets), condensed matter physics (the science of solid matter)
and cosmology (the study of the universe).

The RHIC Complex

RHIC construction began in 1991, and the project was completed
this year. During a commissioning period, all parts of the machine
were tested and operated as a complete system. Construction and
commissioning costs totaled $600 million.

In RHIC, two beams of heavy ions will whiz around in opposite
directions at energies called "relativistic," because
they approach the speed of light. At these speeds, Einstein's
theory of relativity is required to describe the motion.

The ions will travel through a pair of rings in a tunnel 3.8
kilometers (2.4 miles) in circumference. When the beams collide,
each collision will liberate up to 36 trillion electron volts
in energy in a very small volume, about the size of an atomic
nucleus. This enormous energy density will create new matter
at a temperature ten thousand times that of the sun. Such conditions
are the key to creating a quark-gluon plasma. This cannot be
done at existing accelerator facilities anywhere else in the world.

RHIC is actually the newest and final link in a chain of accelerators
that makes up the RHIC accelerator complex. Heavy ions destined
for RHIC originate in the laboratory's Tandem Van de Graaff, proceed
into the Booster, and then into the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron
(AGS); all three were pre-existing facilities at the laboratory.
The AGS will inject heavy ions into RHIC for experiments.

When RHIC is operating, over 100 bunches of heavy ions will
be injected into each of the two rings. Then, with both rings
filled, the ions will be accelerated in minutes to the top energy.
At that energy, the ion beams will coast around the rings in
stable orbits for hours. For experiments, particles will be collided
head-on at the rate of tens of thousands of collisions per second.

International Collaboration on RHIC Experiments

The tunnel configuration provides for six areas where the circulating
beams cross and collisions take place. Four areas now contain
apparatus, called detectors, for electronically recording the
results of the interactions between particles.

Large collaborations of researchers built the four detectors.
All together, close to 1,000 scientists from 90 research institutions
representing 19 countries will be working on RHIC experiments.

Two giant detectors, called STAR and PHENIX, are among the
most complex ever built. The two smaller detectors are known
as PHOBOS and BRAHMS.

Industrial Partnership in RHIC Construction

Principle RHIC components were manufactured by industry, in
some cases through cooperative ventures that transferred technology
developed at Brookhaven Laboratory to private industry.

The RHIC tunnel is filled with two sets of superconducting
magnets strung together like beads on a necklace. The 1,740 superconducting
magnets bend and focus the particles as they speed around the
rings. The dipole and quadrupole magnets were built by Northrop-Grumman
Corporation, on Long Island, and the sextupole magnets were built
by Everson Electric, in Bethlehem, PA. Brookhaven Laboratory
built the corrector magnets and other special magnets.

All RHIC magnets use superconducting cable, which is made from
niobium-titanium alloy filament, a special material that loses
electrical resistance at a temperature close to absolute zero
(minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit). Partnering in superconducting
cable production were: Oxford Superconducting Technology, headquartered
in Carteret, New Jersey; Furukawa Electric, of Nikko, Japan; and
New England Electric Wire, Lisbon, New Hampshire.

Gardner Cryogenics, of Lehigh Valley, PA, worked on the cryogenic
cooling system. Precision Components, in York, PA, manufactured
parts for the PHENIX detector.

RHIC Operating Schedule

RHIC commissioning ended this past August, and the four detectors
are being readied for RHIC operation. The collider will be brought
into operation in stages. The two rings of magnets will first
be cooled down to 4.5 degrees above absolute zero (minus 452 degrees
Fahrenheit). Gold ions will be circulated in opposite directions
in each of the two rings. Next, the ion beams will be collided
at low energies. Then, the beam energies will be steadily increased
until the machine is ready for collisions at high energies. RHIC
will operate for physics experiments in early 2000.

Additional information on RHIC, including graphics and animation,
is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/

The U.S. Department of Energy's
Brookhaven National Laboratory creates and operates major facilities
available to university, industrial and government personnel for
basic and applied research in the physical, biomedical and environmental
sciences, and in selected energy technologies. The Laboratory
is operated by Brookhaven Science Associates, a not-for-profit
research management company, under contract with the U.S. Department
of Energy.